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A Review of the Discussion Relative to the Mount Carroll Seminary/Text/22
labor together, as best they can, to destroy the Seminary and the Baptist Church. "Pilate and Herod were made friends the same day." The great argument of the Elder, upon which rests the entire weight of all he has written, and which if unsound, must insure a total defeat of his efforts, is stated by him thus: "The Baptist faith, true or false, involves in it such an element of superstition, and intolerance, that it necessitates the Baptist character of the Seminary." "What is water Baptism? First, it is immersion only. What more by that faith? Second. It is the only Bible Baptism now, Holy Ghost Baptism is denied and supplanted. What more? Third. It is the alone door, entrance into the Church of Christ. What more? Just as certainly as it is the last, it is one thing more, it is the door into the church of Christ, it is Christ -- a water Christ." The argument is here fairly stated. Having made out this "water Christ" we find the phrase, with a little variation to "water God," "water Christ God," "water Baptism Christ," "water Triune God," &c., repeated twenty-one times within less than two and a half pages of his pamphlet. Why this repetition? Here surely must have been an object in view. Before I close this article, I will inform the reader, what that object was; for there are some "developments," perhaps "painful" ones, to be made with reference to the Elder, and the controversy has now reached a point where at least a few of these are demanded. But we will first look at the assertion that the Baptist faith makes Baptism Christ, a "Water Christ." The special attention of the reader is asked to this point. The Elder presents the argument again in the following language: "With the Baptist there is no getting into the church, the fold of Christ, except in, thorough water Baptism. It is the alone door entrance. (John 10th chapter 1, 7 and 9th verses). Christ is the alone bible door. Then if Baptism is a bible door it is Christ." I will now quote the article of the Baptist faith, which treats of Baptism and the Lords supper. Let the reader examine it. This is the only article of our faith on these two ordinances, and the identical one read in public at the organization of the Baptist Church in , in the presence of hundreds. It reads as follows: "''We believe that christian Baptism is the immersion in water of a believer, into the name of the Father and Son, and Holy Ghost, to show faith in a solemn and beautiful emblem our faith in the crucified burial, and risen Savior, with its effect in our death to sin and resurrection to a new life; that it is a pre-requisite to the privileges of a church relation; and to the Lord's Supper, in which the members of the church by the sacred use of bread and wine, are to commemorate together the dying love of Christ; preceded always by solemn self 22